Product spotlight: Car seats

mrosek91 · August 2023

Today in our Product Spotlight Series we have CARSEATS to discuss! This is an item practically everyone will need before the baby is born (unless you live in a city like NYC that waives the carseat requirement for leaving the hospital with your new little one), so let's get the research rolling!
Do you have specific carseat you love? Tips on scoring deals while remaining within safety guidelines? Travel systems you do or do not recommend? Opinions on different carseats for different stages vs. adjustable ones that can last until your child is 27? FTM questions about fitting these monstrosities into your cars? Please share!

mrosek91 · August 2023

We have one of the Graco click connect bucket seats, I love it because it is so easy to transfer from the car to the stroller, and it's very durable, our first survived three boys great. We only replaced it because it was about to expire when DD was born, and we replaced it with the same thing, which we'll use again for this baby. When DS#1 outgrew that we switched to the Graco Extend2Fit. For our second non-infant carseat we needed something narrower to fit in the car we had at the time, so we got a Cosco (I think their Might Fit?) and it's very serviceable.

night_nurse · August 2023

Whatever you get make sure you 100% know how to install it correctly. And if not, search out a CPST to help you. (Not all firemen or policemen are CPSTs, in fact it is rare that they are.)

We had a Chicco KeyFit 30 with our first that was great, easy to install. It made it’s way through a few friends in the years after our son was born.

I was able to buy a brand new in box Clek Liing on Mercari for our 2nd and it’s the seat we’ll use for this baby too. Clek is a great brand and the Liing is the narrowest seat on the market which is what we need. The actual seat is very light but the base is heavy. We installed the seat with the seatbelt 90% of the time because that was easiest for us as we switched cars frequently.

For any FTM, in my opinion, the infant bucket seat is a MUST. No one likes waking up a sleeping baby just to pop into the store for 2 mins. And being able to buckle baby in while still inside your house away from the heat/cold/rain/snow etc. is 💯. I wish my 17 month old still fit in one.

kmw611 · August 2023

@night_nurse 100% agree about checking in with a CPST to ensure a correct install. So important.

I had a baby trend bucket seat for both my kiddos but it got tossed when we had some water damage and mold in the spare bedroom we had stored it in between kids. I’m not sure if I’ll bother getting another bucket seat and just hand down DS2s Evenflo revolve 360 since he has a Chicco MyFit as well for our smaller car. I think I’d need all new seats in there to fit 3 across. If you’re looking to go with a convertible I love the Revolve. It’s so nice to be able to spin the seat to the side to buckle/unbuckle in a smaller car. Other seats we’ve had and liked at the Chicco Nextfit, loved it and the Diono Radian, hated it. It was difficult to install and massive front to back so it did not fit well in a smaller car or behind a tall person in the front seat. I do not recommend as a rear facing seat. It wasn’t terrible as a booster.

fininevermore · August 2023

I loved my Graco ClickConnect; it survived three kids (DS and my two nieces!) but it is no longer around because while I love my sister, she and her kids are hard on stuff (to be fair I didn’t think I’d need it back). I will definitely get another one this time around and will probably get another Extend2Fit for my husband and mom’s cars (the older one is still holding DS since he’s so thin).

hedgepig · August 2023

We have a Britax BSafe infant seat which I liked, and a Nuna Rava convertible seat which I love (look for the Nordstrom sales) (so easy to install! So soft and comfy!), and an Evenflo seat that's fine, and a couple of Diono Radians that we got from a friend that I don't love (too heavy, too hard to install, too uncomfortable). Unlike most people I never really took the bucket seat out of the car, but with twins and school drop offs, I think I will want to use them more this time.

jamzsquared · August 2023

Has anyone tried a rotating car seat? My husband has spinal issues and I know leaning into the car to strap baby in/take baby out is going to be tough on him, so we’ve been eyeing the various rotating models.

night_nurse · August 2023

@jamzsquared i don’t but really considering when this baby moves to a convertible. It looks so convenient

hedgepig · August 2023

One thing I will add about carseats is to take into consideration the width of the seat. This is especially important if you want to have multiple children and may want to squeeze 3 across in 1 car, but is also helpful for lots of other reasons - fitting in big shopping trips/traveling, fitting extra adults in your car (it's nice to be able to put carseats right next to each other and have an extra person in the car, or even put someone between 2 seats), being able to possibly lay part of your back seat flat in order to transport something bulky, or other situations where you might want to travel with another kid (I would like to be able to bring my niece and SIL on outings without having to bring 2 cars, but our seats/her seat are too big to fit all together). I wasn't really thinking about this when I originally bought seats and a couple of them are gigantic! These days there are lots more slim fit type seats that might make your life easier.

ghanihk · August 2023

For moms who got a travel system with click connect, did you ever switch baby to bassinet mode? Or did the bassinet barely get used. I read somewhere that babies shouldn’t be in the car seat for more than 2 hours now idk if I need to get a travel system with bassinet included just in case

kmw611 · August 2023

@jamzsquared I have the Evenflo 360 revolve and love it but it is a wider seat. We have captains chairs in our larger vehicle so it doesn’t matter much there but it will definitely keep me from fitting 3 across in our smaller car. That said I really love it in both cars. It was so convenient to be able to spin my son to get him in and out of the car when he was rear facing and even now that he’s forward facing and can buckle/unbuckle himself it’s still convenient for the handful of times he falls asleep in the car and I need to carry him in.

farm_mama · September 2023

Reading this reminded me how much I hate car seat shopping! I have no idea what we will get, but we will absolutely need something.

ceclarlinetlo · September 2023

I had a Chicco keyfit 35 zip that I used for my first 2 that expired recently. I got a Chicco keyfit 30 zip when buy buy baby was going out of business. Something I would tell FTM is that chances are your baby will outgrow the infant seat by height before it will outgrow it by weight which is why I didn’t shell out more for the keyfit 35 this time. For reference my first was too tall for the infant seat at about 13 months but by weight he could have sat in it until he was well past 4. I really loved how easy the keyfit base is to install.

If you do decide to skip the infant seat for a convertible do yourself a favor and measure the length of the buckle strap before you commit - the one that goes through the legs. I bought my oldest a baby trend cover me 4-in-1 because it was the only one that had a sun shade like that. Its height and weight max suggested the car seat should have lasted until the kid is ready for a high back booster. I loved it until my son was about 4.5 and then had to buy a new seat because that buckle strap wasn’t long enough and he wasn’t big enough for a booster yet. We went back to Chicco and got the myfit which is a 5 pt harness/backless booster combo. Chicco seats in general are heavy but the ease of install is worth it to me.

If you travel by air, the Cosco scenera next is great. Inexpensive and very light weight.

cioccolata16 · September 2023

@mrosek91 is the Graco Extend2Fit easy to install/uninstall? This is the one we've been looking at. We don't have a car, and are planning to mostly walk/bus until baby is old enough to join us on our bikes. BUT, obviously need a car seat when renting a car/driving in a taxi/coming home from the hospital. This one caught our attention because it is one of the better convertible car seats that still works well for a newborn/infant.

Any other car-free moms?

OR, any other recs for easy-to-install, not horribly heavy, convertible carseats that will adequately support a newborn?

dinomeetsjedi · September 2023

@cioccolata16 I love my Graco and it is easy to install. It does have a base though that the car seat snaps into (it is also very easy to install) but I don't know if that would make it more difficult in a rental car/taxi situation. We like the car seats with bases because we have 4 different people that regularly take my daughter places and so everyone just has a base and we just move the carseat around.

ceclarlinetlo · September 2023

@cioccolata16 check out the Cosco scenera next. It goes down to 5 pounds. It’s so lightweight and not terrible to install. We bought one to be our travel seat for when we fly places and it’s the extra seat I’ll put in other peoples cars to avoid having to my the seat out of my car.

hedgepig · September 2023

@cioccolata16 I like to check out Lucie's List for gear reviews and they talk about carseats for people who don't have cars on there. If I remember correctly she suggests some European infant seats that can be installed without the base that are good for ease of use in taxi's, ubers, etc. I think it was the same article that talked about some newer infant seats that are made to transition to rear facing toddler seats (and last longer than the usual bucket seat).

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Product spotlight: Car seats

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